Beware of poisonous pumpkins
At this time of year, a lot of people enjoy pumpkin soup, dishes with pumpkin or a hollowed-out version for decoration. However, the poison control center warns that caution is advised. After all, not all pumpkins are edible.
The pumpkin that served as a decoration for Halloween disappears into the saucepan of many families to make delicious soup. But beware, there are also poisonous pumpkins!
Non-edible ornamental pumpkins can be recognized by their rock-hard skin, lack of flesh and bitter taste. You won't be so easily tempted to eat them. People who grow their own pumpkins should be especially careful. After all, through cross-pollination, a toxin from an ornamental pumpkin can still end up in edible pumpkins. “You can't always tell,” says Patrick De Cock of the Antivenom Center at VRT NWS. “The best thing you can do is taste the raw pumpkin. If it tastes very bitter and slightly irritating in the mouth, it's best to spit it out immediately. Then you definitely shouldn't eat it.”
Eating a piece of a poisonous pumpkin causes many unpleasant health problems such as severe abdominal pain, vomiting, sometimes bloody diarrhea, dizziness, heart palpitations and lots of saliva in the mouth.
The Belgian Poison Control Center often deals with people who have eaten the poisonous pumpkins and are sick. For example, it receives between 30 and 50 calls each year from people who are seriously ill after eating poisonous pumpkins.
(FVDV for Tagtik/Source: VRT NWS/Illustration picture: Pixabay)
